"Corruption is in no way endemic in the police," Tim Godwin said
LONDON (TrustLaw) – The acting head of London’s Metropolitan Police has denied there’s endemic corruption in the force but says lessons need to be learnt, according to London’s Evening Standard.
Tim Godwin, responding to questions from the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA), the public body that holds the force to account, said that some police officers were “corrupted” but that “the vast majority of staff are honest, hard-working people”.
"Let me reassure you, corruption is in no way endemic in the police. We continue to do all we can to root it out. We need to learn, we need to change. We accept that," the Standard quoted Godwin as saying on Thursday.
Godwin was asked to temporarily take charge of the police force after former commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson resigned on July 26 citing the force’s close links with News International, owner of the now defunct newspaper News of the World.
The News of the World is alleged to have paid police officers for information and hacked the phones of a number of individuals in order to gain access to their voicemails. The scandal has dominated British headlines for the last month.
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